Five Massachusetts Students are facing criminal charges after allegedly luring a soldier to their school campus to ambush him as part of a TikTok trend inspired by “To Catch a Predator.”
The five were part of a larger group of nearly 30 students who unintentionally chased the man out of an Assumption University building after he was invited there by a student on the dating app Tinder on Oct. 1, according to a criminal complaint written by campus police and filed in Worcester District Court on Dec. 4.
According to the complaint, there is no indication that the victim intended to meet any minor. The woman who invited him to campus, Kelsy Brainard, 18, listed his age on her dating app profile, police said.
The Maison Française on the campus of Assomption University, where a 22-year-old soldier was allegedly lured via Tinder and attacked by students on October 1. (Rick Cinclair/Telegram & Gazette / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)
Minutes before the confrontation, police said, footage showed the victim watching a baseball game in the student lounge with Brainard and there was “a large amount of personal space between them,” according to video of the episode shared between students and seen by the police.
Regardless, the group of students allegedly trapped the 22-year-old and confronted him in the student lounge in a “deliberately staged event.” WCVB reported.
The students appeared from hidden locations with their phones in hand, recording as they berated the man as a “sex offender”, grabbed him and prevented him from leaving the lounge. When he fled, 25 people chased him.
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A student, not named in court documents because he is a minor, allegedly hit the victim in the back of the head. Once the victim reached his car, another student slammed his head against his car door. It is unclear whether the man was injured during the incident.
“A few minutes later you see the group returning, laughing and congratulating each other,” police wrote in the complaint.
The victim’s father told WCVB that his son was currently serving in the military and was deployed overseas days after the attack.
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Easton Randall, 19, told police that he and his peers were inspired by the popular NBC series “To Catch a Predator,” in which the show’s host, Chris Hansen, confronted men lured into a house where they thought they would meet minors to have sex before handing them over. these men to the waiting police.
Randall said the group was taking advantage of a TikTok trend inspired by the show, in which people lure a sexual predator to a location to assault them, expose them or turn them over to police.
Randall, Brainard, Isabella Trudeau, 18, and Joaquin Smith, 18, face kidnapping and conspiracy charges, WCVB reported. Brainard was also accused of intimidation; Kevin Carroll, 18, who allegedly slammed the victim’s head against the car door, is charged with battery with a deadly weapon.
Construction continues at the Assumption College Health and Science Building, now called Assumption University, on Thursday, May 21, 2020. (Christine Peterson/Worcester Telegram & Gazette via USA TODAY NETWORK)
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An attorney listed for Carroll did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and attorneys for the other students were not listed on the court docket. The other four defendants could not be reached for comment. The students are due in court on January 16.
Assumption University President Greg Weiner called the incident “heinous and contrary to the mission and values of Assumption University” in a statement and said the Department of Public Safety school immediately launched an investigation after the alleged attack.
“This situation is particularly concerning because the victim is an active duty military member,” Weiner wrote. “His service reminds us of the sacrifices made by those who defend our freedoms, including the opportunity to pursue a college education.”
